


The Time of Youth has Fled

by demeritus



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Angst, Asceticism, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Christianity, Eating Disorders, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Referenced Animal Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:12:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demeritus/pseuds/demeritus
Summary: Bors and Percival recover from the Grail Quest, and Galahad's absence. Percival has a penance in mind for himself.
Kudos: 6





	The Time of Youth has Fled

Though memory could never compare to the astonishment and ecstasy of the experience itself, Galahad’s last moments on earth were forever burned into their eyes. Bors and Percival sat vigil for him that night, their hearts a mix of despair and relief, their bodies weeping and entwined in a familial embrace.

They left Sarras the next morning, on the same boat that brought them there the previous year. Their days at sea were mostly spent silently caring for the ship. They prayed together every morning and every night.

On their fifth day travelling, Percival stayed with Bors after their evening prayer, and kept the candles lit. He spent several minutes looking between the floor, the wall, and Bors, who was situating the blankets that passed for their beds. Percival tried to speak a few times, but stopped himself before he could say a word. When Bors went to extinguish candles, the question escaped.

“What do we do now?”

Bors looked back at Percival and walked back over to sit on the floor next to him. He looked pensive for a moment and rubbed his eyes.

“We...return to Camelot, I suppose. Tell everyone...tell everyone what happened.”

Neither of them had fully considered what their next journey would entail. They had silently agreed to return to their far-off homeland, barely even registering the long, grueling amount of time it would take for them to reach it. Their captain, a friend from Sarras, said they would need to stop every week or so for more supplies. They, in their continued shock, barely thought about what they would need to survive at sea. If it weren’t for Bors, Percival would not have remembered to eat for his state of mind, and the nights he lay awake, sometimes weeping, sometimes just staring forward, Bors was often in his conscious company. He made sure they kept to their rituals, that they were both distracted by what needed to be done, as often as possible.

“Can we really just...go back there? After what we’ve seen?” 

Bors looked down, searching carefully for what to say next. The truth was...there was nowhere else for either of them to go. Camelot had been their only home, though their quest had removed the concept of home from their vocabulary. He sighed.

“They’ll appreciate seeing us...hearing the outcome.”

Percival paused, again struggling to say what he meant. Even after everything, he was still afraid of looking weak in front of the man he had come to consider a father.

“Bors…” He bit his lip before looking at Bors directly. “I...don’t know if I can go back.”

Bors lay his hand on Percival’s and looked at him sympathetically.

“I don’t feel prepared either. I doubt I’ll ever be comfortable with this subject again. Something like this...it will take years to heal from, if I ever can.”

“I’m serious, Bors. I don’t...I don’t want to be a knight anymore.”

Bors studied Percival’s face - he looked tired, somehow, older than his seventeen years. Scars lined his tanned skin in mesmerizing patterns. His green eyes shone amidst the dim light of the room, but Bors couldn’t help but think most of that spark came from the reflection of the candles.

“I understand.”

“After my sister...” Percival said, with quiet, unpracticed confidence. “I told myself that if I survived this, I would follow in her footsteps...I think, I think it’s the only thing I can do...to honor both of them.”

“Percival,” Bors said with sudden energy. “Please...I want you to be sure about this. It’s admirable, to continue devoting yourself to God, but…”

He wanted to tell Percival he didn’t have to live the rest of his life cloistered, silent, alone, that he was so very young, that he had his whole life ahead...every argument struck down by his own pain, the knowledge that memories of their quest would never allow either of them a moment of peace again.

“He wouldn’t want you to live in sorrow...neither do I.”

“Sorrow would be spending the rest of my life on empty quests, devoted to a hollow crown…”

Percival barely flinched as he mildly disparaged his king, who had become so distant in his devotions he knew trying to serve him again would be nothing but false.

It took a moment for Bors to notice the tears trickling down Percival’s face, and he certainly didn’t notice his own. He clutched his friend by the shoulder and gently pulled him into an embrace. Percival sat limply in his arms, but Bors could tell when he had fallen asleep. He lay Percival down on a makeshift pillow and covered him with their softest blanket. He extinguished the candles and lay a few inches from Percival, watching his placid face, hoping he would get the rest he deserved.

Two days later, they reached the shores of a land where the locals spoke Greek. Their search for a chapel led them to a monastery, which Percival regarded with curiosity, and Bors regarded apprehensively. Their last conservation had been playing in Bors’ head in a constant loop, but he was not prepared for it to come to fruition so soon.

This monastery honored Saint Nicholas in name, but what struck both of them as they were led across the campus’ courtyard was the great number of cats roaming the grounds. It was more than a place this size would need for rodents, and Bors considered there might be more cats than people in this place.

Percival’s questions centered around the order’s beliefs and daily practices, how someone like him might fit there. He considered everything seriously, and Bors listened as best he could while keeping track of the herd of cats that had taken to following them. Whenever they stopped for the abbot to explain the purpose of some room, at least one cat started rubbing itself against Bors’ leg. Eventually, the two were left alone in the courtyard. They sat on stone benches, a dozen or more cats lazing on the ground around them, one sleeping in Bors’ lap. Percival pet the tortoiseshell as he thought.

“Why do you think they have so many cats?” Bors asked in a light tone.

Percival actually smiled at that. 

“I don’t know. I was trying to be...professional, so I didn’t ask.”

Bors scratched the cat’s ears and watched the sun begin the set over the top of the main building.

“What are your thoughts?” He asked gently, not wanting to force any answers out of his friend, but worried for him nonetheless.

“Maybe we could stay for a few days. Help out around the place.”

“Take some time to think it over,” Bors said, nodding.

By the end of the week, Bors told their friends they were free to return to Sarras and keep the ship, that they would need no further passage.

It was a month before Percival took his vows and traded one set of rags for another. Bors was adamant that he would stay as long as Percival needed him, though really he wasn’t ready to bid farewell to the boy he had come to see as a son. He had to admit that their time at the monastery was the closest to happy Bors had ever seen Percival.

Before his official entrance, Percival said confession. He did his best to keep himself together while he spoke to the priest that would soon be his superior. He confessed to small things, inconsequential things; every temptation, though overcome, every enemy slain, though with regret, every moment of inaction and weakness and every moment of unspoken pride and envy. His nerves led him to hold back more than he would have liked. His love was all he had left that was his own, and it could not, _could not_ be a sin.

Percival did struggle to learn their rule. The hours were similar to how he had lived on the road, except he had to rise even before the sun and keep to the church's canonical hours of prayer. He was barely aware of their existence before, though he remembered that Galahad had always gone off to prayer at least four times a day, even on the road.

He only knew a few prayers; the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Symbolum Apostolicum. They had a small book with much of what he needed to learn, and he was embarrassed to admit to them that he could not read. He started memorizing daily prayers through repetition, but even when he was required to speak aloud, he kept his voice soft and low.

Percival spent his first weeks in almost constant physical occupation. He took it upon himself to assist with whatever demanding projects needed to be completed; fixing cracks in walls, repairing roofs, scrubbing the floors of the common rooms and bath house. Bors joined him in many of these tasks; he did not mind helping, but it was for Percival’s sake and Percival’s sake only that he remained there at all.

Percival gained the habit of getting so lost in his work so as to completely block out the world around him. It was like waking a sleeping man when Bors reminded him several times a day when it was time for prayer, and it took extensive bothering to convince Percival to leave for mealtimes and eat. 

The longer they were there, the quieter Percival became. Bors knew that he was doing this because it was required of him; Percival had vowed to prove his devotion to his vocation for a year before he would be allowed full admittance, and that meant he needed to display his compliance with their rules. Still, it unnerved him, and worried him. Even up until the last moments of the quest, he had become so accustomed to Percival’s vibrant, talkative nature. Even in times of hardship and grief, he tried so hard to keep hope, project optimism. It all came crumbling down after Galahad’s ascension, but even then, they had talked.

Now, Percival kept his head down, worked himself past exhaustion, and nearly refused to eat. From what Bors’ observed from the monastery as a whole, this level of asceticism was not expected. They lived simply and spoke little, but they took care of themselves body and soul, eating small portions of meat and fish twice a week and keeping themselves clean. 

Though he did not understand it, Bors knew why Percival was doing this to himself. They had had enough conversations on the road and at sea for Bors to get a good sense of how Percival viewed his actions; his accomplishments, failures and sins hung around him like an invisible mist, and he made himself view the world through that fog.

He hadn’t always been like that. In the dark of night and the complete silence of the monastery, Bors remembered the Percival he had met two years earlier. Sure, he was a bit anxious in a way that manifested as hyperactive, and after he spoke he often got a look on his face like he had made a horrible mistake; but he had been bright, smiling, even hopeful. He had treated Galahad like he spoke only the word of God, and revered the ground he walked on. It had taken time for Percival’s nervous apprehension toward Bors to ease, but when it did, the younger knight stuck to him like moss on a rock. He hadn’t minded; as far as Bors was concerned, if it was the destiny of these boys to achieve the Holy Grail, it was his duty to make sure they could do so in one piece. In this, he had already failed, and he hoped to God he could save Percival one last time.

Three months in, Bors approached Percival while the former knight was tending to some of the cats in the courtyard. It turned out that the cats _were_ pest control of a kind, fending off the dangerous snakes that occupied the land outside the monastery’s walls. The monks made a salve to heal their more major wounds, and no one knew, for he would never admit such selfishness, but administering to the cats was Percival’s favorite job. He had always had a fondness for animals and in this work he seemed most serene, more comfortable.

“I worry for you,” Bors opened, sitting on the ground near Percival and his small flock.

Percival shot him a look, though Bors could not tell if it was sympathy or reassurance, for its subtlety.

“I understand your pain, and I know why you cling to this devotion, but-” He stared at Percival for a moment, until the younger man felt his eyes and looked back.

“I love you like a son, and I cannot bear to watch you destroy yourself.”

Percival looked away again, perhaps in shame, or simple pain. He ceased ministering to the cat in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Percival whispered almost imperceptibly. 

Bors softly put his hand on Percival’s bony shoulder.

“It’s time I returned to Camelot,” he said, great regret in his voice. “They must hear of our fate, the things we’ve seen.”

Percival placed his small hand on Bors’ own.

“Thank you.”

Bors accompanied him to supper, ensuring he ate _something,_ joined him in prayer, and lay near him through the night. He left after next morning’s terce prayer.

__Percival fell into a deep depression. It had been four months, and he barely went outside, and refused to drink anything but water or eat anything but bread. At month six he had to greatly scale down his physical labor. His muscles had grown soft and his frame painfully pale and frail. He took to kitchen work, preparing food that he did not allow himself to eat. He spent all of his free time in solitary prayer, and most of his nights were spent knelt on the cold stone floor of the dormitory._ _

__His silent prayers began much like they had for years. He confessed, as if he had not already multiple times, his sins and mistakes. Though while he had once ended this confession with an entreaty for absolution and a promise of redemption through action, he shifted toward self-denial._ _

He remembered the look on his mother’s face, the fear in her voice as he left her, never to return; the news of her death. 

_Mea culpa, pater._

He remembered his failure with the Fisher King. 

_Mea culpa, pater._

He remembered his sister; once her rebuke, twice her guidance, thrice her companionship, and finally, her death. 

_Mea culpa, pater._

He was lonely without Bors, the only father he had ever known. He missed his quiet confidence, his swift action, his compassionate guidance. 

__

__

_Mea culpa, pater._

He missed Galahad, the light he had followed through the treacherous tunnel that was the Grail Quest, the light in whose glow he had found warmth and friendship; the light he had yearned to make one with that of his own dying star. 

_Mea culpa, pater._

__He apologized that he had contributed nothing of value to the world. He thought of all the things he could have done, fault from inaction. He accepted that he might be damned, but he never ceased expressing his love for his God, his earth, his long-gone companions._ _

__In the eighth month, near Epiphany, he slipped away in the chill of early morning. The others found him upon rising, laying still in front of the chapel’s sparse altar, wearing little else but a thin wool robe, trails of ice running down his cheeks._ _

**Author's Note:**

> *”my fault, father”
> 
>  **The Holy Monastery of Saint Nicholas of the Cats** was established in 327 CE on the island of Cyprus. It is said that the land around the monastery was filled with snakes, and to drive them off, their patron Saint Helena sent for hundreds of cats to cull the snakes. Cats have lived alongside monks and nuns in the monastery ever since. 
> 
> * The title is a modified line from _The Angel_ by William Blake


End file.
